Tortured Waters

Tortured waters swirled beneath the pier, and nought could be done to calm them. They screamed their salt-scoured warnings as they grazed Elizabeth's feet, but all she heard was the familiar rasp of foam-lipped waves that greeted her every morning. She stood in them a moment, until her feet went numb, then stepped back onto the sanctuary of sand and padded across to the base of the pier, leaving a trail of whimpering water with every sodden footstep. She walked to the end of the pier, looked over the banister to the turquoise conflict below, and lowered her baited hook down, down, down, until it was lost to the mercy of the sea.

Up and down that hook would journey for the next hour, pricking, piercing the water, ripping flesh from its body but never leaving a scar, and each silver-scaled fish that Elizabeth caught would gasp its last breath on the unforgiving wood of the pier, its iridescent eye staring through the slats to its mother below. The fishwife worked relentlessly, for her husband was in a drunken stupor again, and could not be roused to feed his family nor his pocket.

The sea understood this. It gave its children willingly to this woman, and hoped in return she might hear its pleas.

Another joined Elizabeth on the pier, her footsteps lighter than a whisper, her hair darker than benthic depths. Crab trap in hand, Sum Yee positioned herself beside Elizabeth, bending her neck in a shy and unanswered bow. She looked out into the expanse beyond the pier and slung her trap as far as she could. It splashed into the water, and sank to the ocean floor as the rope slid through her slender fingers.

The sea moaned to Sum Yee, begging her to heed its warnings. It gripped the crab trap, threatening to hold it hostage, but the crabs had sensed the bait already and scuttled across the sand to their inevitable fate. The waters wailed. No one listened.

They stood in silence, the fishwife and the crabber; a companionable silence they both considered breaking with a tepid utterance, but both wondered if the other would even understand, and both inevitably cast the idea aside. This turmoil happened within them every morning, for every morning was the same as today. Months had gone by without a word.

The last to grace the pier was Ngapera, and as Elizabeth stooped to rebait her hook, she caught sight of the familiar young woman hitching her skirts and wading into the water, a woven basket hanging from her elbow. With the waters up to her hips, she let her skirts bob on the surface and pulled from her kete a small bone blade. She disappeared beneath the pier, and at the next moment the rhythmic scrapings of bone against wood murmured behind the cadence of the waves, as Ngapera began removing mussels from the pilings.

The sea took its chance then, for here was a woman who would listen.

Those tortured waters swirling beneath the pier wrapped around Ngapera's legs, squeezing with both the vehemence of a stern mother and the fervour of a desperate child. It clung to her like the very mussels she twisted and pried. It keened as though it had knees on which to collapse. Hear me! Look! Look!

Ngapera looked because the water told her to. Sum Yee looked because her crab trap grew heavy. Elizabeth looked because a shadow caught her attention.

Not a shadow. A bulk. A body.

"A seal?" Elizabeth asked.

"No," Sum Yee said.

"He tamaiti!" Ngapera screamed. A child.

A swollen wave burst against the shore in a resounding cry of relief. Finally, the sea had been heard, its secrets revealed. Yes, a child, an innocent child, a dreadful gift provided to a haven that could not refuse, could not turn its waters to stone to deny the body. It had felt the weight of the child as he sank to the bottom. It could not lift him up.